


Running Red

by JackBivouac



Series: Dungeon Online [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work, Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game), Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Video Game World, Bestiality, Blood and Gore, Bondage, F/M, Forced Orgasm, Gangbang, Impregnation, Interspecies Sex, Knotting, Loss of Virginity, Multi, Other, Rape, Sexual Slavery, Size Difference, Unconscious Sex, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-01 13:50:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18801607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackBivouac/pseuds/JackBivouac
Summary: 5 beta testers refuse Dungeon Online's offer to timeskip thinking they'll exit the beta faster. Instead, they're stranded in the game's past/present where they must survive the toughest quest of them all, the natural progression of time.Someone asked about an explicit campaign, so this is a take on that. Stage 2 is an adventure for players levels 4-7 deviating/derived from a Kingmaker campaign. Chapters containing graphic rape are titled "Contains Rape."





	1. Contains Rape

“No...NO! What the fuck?!” screamed Sangra. There was no logout option. Just because he hadn’t timeskipped to the stupid epilogue? “WHAT. THE. FUCKKK?!”

He flipped to the questlog. Everything had been completed, this whole fucking stage had been cleared. He threw up his hands with a maddening roar.

His screech tore the wind and will from his body. Sangra fell to his knees in the leaves, arms slack at his sides. His head dropped back against his shoulders, eyes staring sightlessly into the growing darkness beyond the Greenbelt’s endless canopy.

Sangra had read the stories and watched the shows of people trapped in video games. Once upon a time, it was a fate he’d wished upon himself. But he had a life now, followers, a fanbase.

No, nobody knew his real name or recognized him on those seldom occasions when he left his apartment, but...something scaly slithered softly through the leaves. The rogue was crouched in an instant, his avatar moving with a mind of its own.

Before he could cast away the daggers gripped in both hands, a green-scaled creature twenty feet long from smoking snout to spiked tail dropped down from between the trees. The forest floor shook under its thousand pounds of lean, serpentine muscle. Two long, leathery wings flared on either side of the forest drake, its curved neck swelling with acidic breath.

“Shit.” Sangra ran.

He tore between the trees, weaving this way and that behind the thickest trunks. Bark hissed under the splatter of green acid. He’d dodged the spew, but at the instant of contact, the drake’s acidic ball exploded a ten-foot cloud of acid vapors.

Sangra broke into a violent fit of coughing, eyes, nose, and throat peeling and burning. But he couldn’t take on a goddamned forest drake by himself, so he kept on running into the night woods.

The drake roared and cantered after him, snaking between the shaking trees. Sangra’s foot caught a root. The rogue went flying, crashing through a thicket.

He rolled, wobbling, to his feet into the clearing on the other side. A literal clearing. It looked like a bulldozer had dozed through, carving out a swath of felled trees, trampled brush, and churned earth.

The bushes behind him hissed and rattled under acidic spew. The drake’s noxious fog engulfed Sangra and the clearing. The rogue gripped his choking throat, tears streaming from his burning eyes.

This was it.

The drake snaked into the clouded clearing with a hissing laugh. Its maw of dagger-length teeth opened into a ravenous grin.

An ursine roar shook the trees. Sangra and the drake turned with narrowed eyes at the night and fog. An eight-foot-tall wrecking ball of fur and feathers body-slammed into the drake.

The drake hit the trees with a mighty whack and whimper. Sangra watched in blinking disbelief as this screeching half-owl, half-bear monstrosity ripped through the drake’s scales with its beak and clawed, winged arms.

The drake shrieked and bit back, whipping its spiked tail. A clawed hand closed around the meat of its tail. The owlbear swung the drake into the trees and the ground like a ragdoll in the fist of a bratty toddler.

Sangra wisely chose to make his escape as the owlbear whacked the forest drake into a smoking green paste.

#*#*#*#*

Gin sobbed with his or their head in his hands at the edge of the glassy pond. This quiet forest glade had seemed the perfect campsite only hours ago waiting for the other players to clear the last quest and end this bugged out beta. Now its beauty was nothing but a mocking cage.

“Soul of deer, soul of owl, why do you weep?”

The shifter’s head snapped toward the sound of that ethereal voice. A tall, slender fey with skin of softest bark and hair of blooming vines stood on the pond’s mossy bank, a dryad. Beside them stood a male fey with the upper body of a hairy, muscular man but the legs of goat. With his curling horns, the faun reached just over his companion’s shoulder.

Gin wiped his tears on his sleeve. “Wh-who are you?”

The dryad stepped into an elegant bow. “I am Tiresias.”

The faun simply jerked his bearded chin in a nod. “Yo, call me Falchos.”

“We are fey, children of the First World.”

“What are you doing here in Golarion?” asked Gin, dusting off his knees as he straightened up to his feet. The quests were cleared but the beta wasn’t over. Maybe this was some kind of secret questline. “Do you need help getting back?”

“Not exactly,” smiled Tiresias, “but perhaps there is indeed something you can help us with.”

“Really, Trees? This sad sack of-oof,” Falchos grunted at the whack to his stomach.

“He may appear as human now, but his soul is as strongly called to the Green as our own. Let us take him to the Dancing Lady that she might see for herself.”

“Hmph. Fine. What’s your name, kid?”

“Gin, and don’t worry. You caught me at a bad time, but there isn’t any quest I can’t handle.”

“The Lady will surely be pleased to hear it,” said the dryad, extending a long, slender hand.

Gin took it in his. Hand-in-hand, he followed the fey into the night and unknown groves of the Greenbelt.

#*#*#*#*

With the gathering clouds, not a single star or ray of moonlight could pierce the darkness that stole upon the Stolen Lands. The sorcerer, both refusing to stop and refusing to stumble blindly along the sheer side of the cliff, flicked the tip of their hood. A yellow glow as bright as a torch burst from the fabric.

Banan crossed their arms over their undeveloped pecs. Predators be damned, they weren’t stubbing their toe in this game with true-to-life pain reception. Unlike a stubbed toe, a predator would actually kill their scrawny ass and finally end this un-logout-able nightmare.

They stopped at the top, the path following a wide ledge where a corner of stone masonry jutted from the face of the cliff itself. Banan peered out over the edge, kicking down a trickle of pebbles.

That was quite a drop. The kind of drop they’d have no hope of coming back from even when the trees below broke their fall. Their neck would definitely snap before they had to suffer the slow slide of impalement.

Banan’s pack hit the gravel with a dusty poof. The sorcerer set their jaw and clenched their fists. It was time to force a logout.

Whack! A bludgeoning strike to the temple put a short stop to their ultimately ill-fated plan. Banan dropped to the dust beside their sack. The light flickered out from their hood.

Their hunched, fourteen-foot tall attacker preferred the dark anyway. Rough green hide covered the troll, its bestial face ending in a tusked underbite. Its clawed hands ripped the robes from Banan's body like tissue paper.

The troll grunted at the sight of that small, firm human ass. It ran its long, thick tongue over tooth and tusk before plunging the dripping thing into Banan's tiny asshole.

A shudder ran down their spine, a soft moan escaping their unconscious lips. Their anal shaft gave the troll's tongue a tight, delicious squeeze.

With a low, feral growl, the troll hefted the human up by the hips and shoved its giant, rough green cock into their asshole. Though the sorcerer hadn't the strength to awaken, their over-stuffed body couldn't ignore the dick battering their gut with every wall-ripping thrust.

Banan's mouth choked out a wet gurgle. Their body jerked and quaked in the troll's iron grip, head, hands, and knees scuffling and banging against the dusty stone. Each ill-timed writhe only sent their tortured asshole seizing around its giant, rough impaler.

The troll let out an animal howl. Its claws dug into soft flesh of Banan's bucking ass, blood running around its nails. It pounded the sorcerer into the path, cum exploding from the tip of its cock into that tiny, spasming pocket of flesh.

Banan groaned into the gravel. Their unconscious body wracked in uncontrollable orgasm. Seed spewed from their own dick between their belly and the dust. More seeped from their rawed asshole as the troll pulled out from between their twitching legs.

The troll grabbed the sorcerer's ankles in one hand. This one was a toy worth keeping. That glowy magic might prove troublesome, but between its brains and those of its entire clan, it was sure they would come up with something.


	2. Contains Rape

The last thing Kel remembered was the rushing of the forest river, the deep drag that battered their or her body against every stone of the riverbed. The last thing she remembered was the wild, helpless flailing of her every limb, the choking fire in her lungs, a prayer even to her virtual goddess just to make it stop.

The cleric opened the stiffened lids of her eyes as far as they would crack. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she picked out the single, flickering torch valiantly attempting to light the dripping, yawning darkness of this grotto.

Kel moved to sit up only to flop on her side like a landed fish. Pins and needles speared through her arms and legs. She yelped into a sodden gag.

The cleric's eyes bulged in fear. She hadn't been rescued. She'd been bound, her arms pinioned by tight ropes to her sides, her hands tied behind her back so her palms pressed together as though in prayer to prevent casting. More rope lashed her legs together at the knees and the ankles.

Worse still, she was entirely naked in her bonds on the floor of the cave. And she was not alone.

A middle-aged woman in sandals and a ragged black smock stepped out from the shadows. She squatted by Kel, brushing the hair off the cleric's terrified face. A metal pendant in the shape of a bloodshot eye hung from her belt, the symbol of the hag-goddess Gyronna.

"Welcome, Mother," said the cultist, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "I am the High Priestess Niska. Fear not, child, for you have been chosen by the Hag Queen for the greatest of honors. You shall bear the fruit of the goddess that rids these woods of their accursed Green tether for good."

Niska rose to her feet and snapped her fingers. The clammy hands of her cultist followers shoved Kel onto her bare breasts and pushed her legs onto her knees so that her ass stuck up in the air.

Large, clawed paws padded the ground behind her. Kel looked back over her shoulder. Her eyes stretched wide in fear, the holes clenching between her legs.

Canine eyes glinted blood red in the darkness. A black-furred worg, a wolf born of evil magicks incarnate stepped forth from the shadows. He stood three feet at the shoulder, his long, lean build over three hundred pounds of muscle. A red, knotted dick swung between his powerful legs.

Kel jerked as instinctively as any prey under the cultist. Neither hand nor bond gave, instead crushing her squirming body against the stone floor. 

The cultists only moved away as the worg padded behind her. His forepaws landed heavily on her shoulders, pinning her beneath his straddling legs. The heat rolling off the animal's cock pricked the sensitive skin between her bound legs.

The worg mounted Kel without warning. His dick tore through her hymen and ripped the walls of her pussy apart in a single, burning stroke. Kel shrieked into her gag.

A virgin in her old life, she was no longer. There was nothing left unfelt by that animal dick pounding her pussy into a sodden, fleshy pulp. Each pistoning thrust sent her body writhing in a fresh burst of agony.

The worg growled low on top of her. Her tight, virgin lips were refusing his knot. The beast had no choice but to batter his mounted human bitch harder, faster, deeper. His brutal rut was rewarded with a soft, squelching pop.

Kel snorted and choked around her gag, her spine clenched from tail to skull at the impossible, weighty girth stretching her walls to their every limit. She was knotted, the knotted bitch of this animal raping her pussy apart. It was the last semi-rational thought of her mind as her penetrated cunt squeezed in orgasm around the worg's cock and knot.

Her body wracked, spasming uncontrollably in her bonds beneath the raping worg. Her toes clenched, legs trembled, tears and snot leaking as free as her stuffed pussy's slick. Her defeated moans were animal, and her knotted master howled at the sound.

The worg came into her pussy, his virile, burning seed gushing into Kel's helpless womb. The cleric, his utterly dominated bitch, drooled and bucked her bestial master onward.

#*#*#*#*

When refusing the timeskip didn't pan out, Dodger wandered aimlessly back to the start of it all, Oleg's Trading Post. The repurposed fort was a smoking ruin razed entirely to the ground under the overcast dawn. She was disappointed by the lack of green diamonds indicating players who'd made the same self-screwing decision as...herself, but a horse and rider were approaching from the border road to the north. 

That was something. The fighter unsheathed her falchion on the half odds it was something bad.

The horse slowed to a stop. The rider, a grizzled human with shoulder-length, salt-and-pepper locks, dismounted with empty hands.

Dodger lowered her sword and met them halfway in the charred field. "Hail, Quest-giver. Boy, am I glad to see you. Any chance you're here to retrigger that timeskip?"

The NPC blinked owlishly. "I can hear you speaking Common, but I didn't understand half the words out of your mouth."

"Should've seen that coming. Right, I'm Dodger, last of the Greenbelt Rangers, apparently."

"I guess that makes you the only person I'm looking for. My name is Akiros, emissary of the Restov swordlords. This is for you." They handed her a scroll.

As soon as Dodger touched it, its full text appeared in a pop-up. It was a new charter permitting the colonization of the Stolen Lands, to be renamed now that they'd been reclaimed from the bandits. Additionally, it promised a shipment of gold, tools, and laborers to finance the fledgling nation’s first city.

Dodger let out a low whistle. “Challenge accepted.”

The clouds above rumbled low. The first drops of a drizzle plinked against the fighter’s nose and the emissary’s cheek. Akiros raised their eyebrows. “You aren’t going to open that?”

“No need,” Dodger grinned, tucking the scroll into the safety of her pack still rolled. She was almost certain she caught them muttering “weird flex, but okay.”

“I’ll be riding back and forth between here and Restov. What names shall I bring back to the swordlords concerning this chartered land and the founding city?”

“Hold up. I get to name this place?”

“Normally, it’d be put to a vote, but as the sole surviving ranger…”

Dodger chuckled, rubbing her palms together in blatant, irrefutable mischief. Akiros’ mouth drew in a thin, steely line.

“For some reason I feel compelled to tell you that the swordlords will hold you to a modicum of decency.”

“Pbbt,” said Dodger, snapping her fingers. “Alright, fine. How about ‘Dodge’ and ‘Dodge City.’”

“I’m taken aback by your creativity, but yes, those will suffice.”

“Woah there! Are you snarking me, Quest-giver?”

Akiros merely shook their head and drew up their hood in the strengthening rain. They put two fingers in their mouth in an ear-piercing whistle.

The stallion rode up, the emissary swinging up into the saddle without breaking the beast’s stride. As they turned back to the road, Dodger could’ve sworn she caught the slightest trace of an upward curve on those steely lips.


	3. Contains Rape

Whatever wild path Tiresias and Falchos were leading Gin down, the trees of the Greenbelt seemed to spring fractal-like from its heart. For all the shifter knew, they’d walked for days into the depths of this interminable forest. Not that he was particularly bothered by the possibility.

He did not hunger. He did not thirst. As long as his hp remained in the green, neither did he need rest.

No, what did bother him were the off-key tunes the faun kept piping from his goddamned aulos. “Jesus Christ, now I know why Athena threw that fucking thing away.”

“Who’s...Athena?” Falchos grunted between bellowing breaths.

“Who is Jesus Christ?” asked Tiresias.

“Nobody,” said Gin.

“Ooo...a girrrl...friend.”

“Sounds more like an ex to me.”

Gin rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Just forget it.”

“Not...on your life.”

“Certainly. We have arrived.”

The forest opened around a ruined, circular keep surrounded by its most ancient trees. These twisted, gnarled giants draped with hanging moss towered over the four towers sprouting from the cracked walls. Thorned, woody vines wrapped the crumbling walls in a coat of verdant green bleeding seamlessly into the woods. 

“Where are we?” asked Gin, his voice hushed by the ponderous aura of this sacred place.

Tiresias shot Falchos a lipless smile over the shifter’s head. “You perceive it well. Search your heart, for the answer already resides with you.”

Gin searched his map instead. “We’re...not in the Stolen Lands. We’re not even in Golarion anymore.”

“Welcome to the Veil, kid,” said Falchos.

“The Between-Worlds. The Greenbelt, you see, was seeded in the ley lines connecting your world with that of ours, the First World. But enough of this for now. The Dancing Lady awaits.”

The two fey walked through an open, arched gateway ringed with the thorn teeth of its binding vines. With a laugh shaking in excitement, Gin followed them through.

#*#*#*#*

“They are mage,” said a troll.

There was a slap of backhand against upside of face. “Why bring mage here?! Mage have magic finger!”

“Magic come from finger. Finger can break,” said Hargulka, patron of the troll clan.

Two trolls closed their clawed hands into fists. Each struck with the green, meaty hammer. Banan screamed awake as their finger bones smashed to splinters, hp dropping to yellow before their eyes.

It was the only thing the wounded sorcerer could see. They struggled to their knees on the damp, stone floor. Sharp fragments scratched the bare skin of their legs. Soft, wet pastes squished under their weight, erupting fresh clouds of rotted meat and dung stink.

Harsh laughter drowned out the sound of Banan’s own sobs as they drew their ruined hands in to their chest. Heavy chains clanked from the wall. Two deep, bodily growls rumbled under the jeering laughter.

In the darkness, Banan was completely blind to the approach of the two, scaly trollhounds. Foul fluid seeped from the sores across their powerful, vaguely canine bulk. The trollhounds stood four feet at the shoulder on thick, squat legs. Like their troll masters, the hounds’ oversized jaws ended with a pronounced underbite.

As the growling approached, all that relatively unharmful laughter faded into white noise. Banan hunched into a ball, stifling their sobs as best as they could.

The trollhounds pounced. Banan cried out, legs kicking and arms flailing against the heated, scale-covered muscle. The snarling hounds were as unrelenting as solid walls.

They knocked Banan onto their naked back, exposing the sorceror’s unprotected belly. A thick, tapered length of hot flesh rammed through Banan’s crying mouth. The hound was pounding the back of the sorcerer’s throat before they realized they’d been penetrated by its dick.

Two dicks. The second hound straddled Banan’s hips and kicking legs between its squat, muscled limbs and shoved its tapered dick through their clenched anus. The first cock choked out the scream in the human’s throat.

Banan’s helpless body jerked and rocked between the two hounds pistoning their throat and their ass into the shit-covered floor. Then came the knots.

Banan shrieked and gagged, snorting and convulsing like a convict getting the chair as their torn walls stretched and ripped anew. Their heels scuffed in the dung, their arms bouncing against their chest. 

The hounds, heedless to all but their own pleasure kept up the onslaught, their swelling dicks beating Banan's throat and anus to a pulp. In that brutal assault, their knotted dicks hit their bitch's rawed nerves.

The human's body crumpled under the hounds, the walls of their throat and anus seizing around the animals' cocks. The hounds howled, plunging even deeper into the rigidly quivering bridge of flesh between them. Seed exploded from their heads.

As the hounds were knotted in Banan's tortured ass and mouth, it was but the first burst of many. The beasts continued to rock and pound their half-conscious bitch into orgasm after orgasm in their stinking domain.

#*#*#*#*

The ruined keep's central tower was an elegant spire of ivory stone draped in a grasping tangle of flowering vines. Gin followed Tiresias and Falchos up its winding stair, sticking close to the wall. The tower was hollow, and without a rail, one wrong step meant starting the climb all over again.

One breathless eternity later, they finally reached the single floor at the top. Then and only then did it occur to Gin that he could've shifted into his new owl form and just flown up here.

"Next time," he wanted under his breath.

"Next time?" giggled a voice with the tinkling of breaking glass.

Gin raised his head from over his knees. There before an open window draped with curtains of living vine stood a woman so beautiful that Gin forgot how to breathe.

The fey was short and curved but held herself almost aloft with a dancer's grace. As she lilted forward on swaying hips, her long, platinum locks swished tail-like behind her. She stopped in front of him, perched on the tips of her toes so that her nose nearly brushed his.

"H-hi," gulped Gin. His knees melted at her smile.

"Hello, Green child. I'm called the Dancing Lady. Might I know your name?"

"I-it-it's Gin. I'm Gin." He cleared his throat. "I heard I might be able to help you with...anything."

The Lady pealed her heart-shattering laugh, drawing back to appraise the shifter. "I think you just might. These lands, you know, belong to the fey, but your mortal brethren seek to occupy them. We have seen their work. They will defile the Greenbelt in the name of progress, of industry."

"You want me to...kill them?"

Even in a game, the thought made Gin uneasy. Then again, the last quests required them to kill bandits and kobolds. He hadn't taken part but only because he'd been chased up and down the river by murderous lizardfolk.

"Not quite. I want you to drive them off by whatever means you deem fit. Will you be a scourge upon their backs? Will you be my Knight of Thorns?"

Gin smiled back. That, he could manage. "I will my Lady."

The Stolen Lands were as good as hers.


	4. The Knight of Thorns

With nothing to do but wait until the time caught up to the skipped players, Sangra took to wandering and updating the map with new locations. It beat taking rest after eight-hour rest, which he'd also tried to pass the time. Unfortunately, his virtual dreams were as boring as those in his real life. Worse, now that they served as a heartless reminder of the life he'd been locked out of.

For now, for now. No beta could last forever and certainly not keep up this simulated natural time.

A faint cry echoed through the narrow, craggy valley in which he found himself. It sounded weak, wounded, human. 

The rogue slipped into a crouch, flipping both daggers into his hands. If they were still alive, any attacker couldn't be far off. Sangra tread soundlessly over the rock, guided forward by the pained cries.

He followed them to a steep wall of rock, a narrow cave hollowed ten feet over the valley floor. Scaling that wall would leave his back totally defenseless.

Sangra grit his teeth, then stepped into the shadows. At least here he could use his sneak attack.

"Hello? Anybody there?" he called out.

"Help me! Help me!" cried the woman from the cave. She did not, however, show her face.

This was a trap. There was literally nothing else this could be. But Sangra couldn't see anything between the valley shadows and the glaring sun.

He flexed his fingers and closed his eyes. He pulled up the "Rest" option, forcing his breath to still. In the silence, he listened.

There, a breath. He shut down the menu, eyes opening wide. The rogue kicked a spray of dust and gravel into the offending shadow. And caught the outline of a badger's head, lion's body, and stag's legs on a single, magical beast.

Sangra sprang into a vicious but precision attack. His daggers ripped through the thin skin of the beast's forelegs, steel biting artery. And blooding the beast into a roaring frenzy.

The leucrotta's jaws rent the meat from his shoulder. Its sharp-hooved legs kicked at the wounded rogue.

Sangra shifted out of the arc of one razor-sharp hoof. The second caught him at the height of his forehead.

Stars burst in his eyes. Blood ran in a blinding sheet down his face.

But his body no longer obeyed the rules of mortal combat. His eyes locked onto the beast's body despite the curtain of blood. His arms slashed with a speed and precision no dizzied human could possess.

His daggers tore out the underside of the leucrotta's throat. The beast dropped dead to the valley floor. Sangra stepped out of the way of its puddling blood.

The rogue checked his map. Yep, it'd been updated with "Leucrotta's Lair," which he'd be looting and using for one of those dreaded rests. 

But there was something else there. It was a location not discovered by himself but replacing the old bandit fort.

"Dodge City? What the f…"

#*#*#*#*

Rather than rebuild Oleg’s razed Trading Post as Dodge’s capital city, Dodger spent her gold and labors to renovate the bandit’s former stronghold, cutting both costs in half. She stood in the front dirt yard, surrounded by the whack of hammers, the buzz of saws, and the bustle of laborers carting materials this way and that. The clouding dirt stuck to her sweaty, grinning face.

“You’re looking awfully chipper for a baroness without a temple,” said Akiros, leading their horse through the gate.

“Pbbt. I gotta tell ya, Quest-giver, this city ain’t big enough for the two of us.”

“I would argue it’s barely enough to contain your persona alone.” The emissary didn’t stop until they’d stepped out of the blazing sun and into the shrinking shadows of the stable. “I’m serious about that temple, though.”

“Can we not be a godless city like God intended?”

“Why not Abadar? Patron god of cities, law, merchants, and wealth? Surely you don’t object to the success of your own city.”

“There’s a charm to lawlessness, you know.”

“There’s also a high rate of leader turnover.”

“Fine, fine, it’s on the back-burner, I swear.”

Akiros blinked at “back-burner,” sighing in exasperation. “Just promise me you’ll get one in place before any of these workers get injured on the job.”

Dodger opened her mouth with a witty retort on the tip of her tongue. It evaporated in the high noon sun as a green diamond and gamertag materialized on the slope of the hill. A second player, “Sangra,” strode into town.

He froze ten paces in front of her, blinking like the NPC. His face shattered into a dopey, disbelieving grin. He ran to her, flinging his arms around her dusty form.

“Oh my god,” breathed Sangra, tearing up either from dirt, emotion, or both. “Thank god I’m not the only one!”

“I hear tell this is a godless place,” muttered Akiros.

Dodger, recovered from her own shock, stuck her tongue out at the NPC over Sangra’s shoulder before pulling back. “Sangra, this is my flunkey Akiros. Akiros, Sangra.”

“Well met,” said Akiros. “If I may, how do you know the Baroness?”

“Baroness?” Sangra looked back and forth between Akiros and Dodger, his narrowed eyes widening then narrowing again in understanding.

“Right, so, I guess I wasn’t the sole surviving ranger,” said Dodger.

Akiros opened their mouth with a biting reprimand on the tip of their tongue, no doubt. It also evaporated, this time at the clop of hooves on the slope of the hill.

Dodger and Sangra turned. They had to stare as well. A green mare walked into town. Her hide-armored rider bore the green diamond of a player, but his gamertag was nowhere to be found. 

The shifter stopped in the exact spot as Sangra, but he did not dismount. His face remained a stern, hard plane. “Greetings, mortals, or should I say, trespassers. You build upon land that is not your own.”

“I beg to differ,” said Dodger.

“The Dancing Lady cares not for your words. Leave this place, all of you, or I shall be forced to take matters into my own hands.”

“Who’s hands would those be?” asked Sangra. “What happened to your gamertag?”

“I am the Knight of Thorns, Scourge of the Dancing Lady. That is all you need know.” With that, he turned his green mare and galloped out from the city.

Akiros, Dodger, and Sangra coughed in the clouds of dust in his wake.

“Fucking weird,” croaked Dodger, waving a hand in front of her face to clear the air.

“I don’t know,” coughed Sangra. “This place was starting to get to me to.”

“Yeah, I guess I could see a brain getting overcooked in these Soul Translator machines.” She shuddered at the notion of overcooking herself and quickly squashed all thoughts of the real world back into the tiny corner of her brain where she kept them under lock, key, chain, and deadbolt. “Anyway, this town is definitely not big enough for two baronexes, but I’ve got some spare gold and laborers if you want to knock up your own city up north. I’ll split ‘em fifty-fifty with ya.”

Technically, seventy-five-twenty-five.

“So you’re just gonna ignore that ominous threat from a glitched up player and keep building?”

“...yeah. What else am I gonna do? Fill the map with a trail of corpses?”

Sangra’s face twitched with a microsecond cascade of mixed emotions. It settled on a neutral, generally disapproving frown. “Fine, ‘Baroness.’ Send them up to the old Trading Post.”

“If you’re serious about founding another city,” said Akiros, finally stepping out of the shadows, “I’ll need a name to put on the charter, Baron Sangra.”

“Sangaritaville,” said Sangra without breaking an inch. He stalked out of the town without another word.

“It seems you were right about this city not being big enough for two,” said Akiros, sending the stablehand to fetch a new horse.

“What? You’re leaving too? But you just got here!”

“If I leave now, I can reach Restov by nightfall. Besides, I didn’t think you cared for my company.”

“I don’t, but I hate day-drinking alone.”

Akiros looked from Dodger to the approaching stable hand. They sighed and waved the elderly NPC away. “You have really got to sort out your priorities before your reign truly begins.”

Dodger grinned and hooked the NPC’s arm in hers. “Tavern, ho!”


	5. Contains Rape

The Dancing Lady’s green mare knew the way through the Veil, returning Gin to the ruined keep of their mistress. He dismounted with a word and pat of thanks. Then shifted from his human body into the new form granted by the level up.

Gin closed his eyes and spread his arms. Tawny feathers flowed out from his skin. Great wings longer than his own body descended from his arms, a tail fanning from the end of his spine. His nose and mouth melded into a hard, narrow beak. His feet twisted into razor-sharp talons.

Gin opened his eyes, solid black orbs at the center of his feathered face. He inspected himself with a husky, hooting laugh. Gin leapt into the air, beating his wings as fast as a hummingbird.

Though he half expected to smack his beak into the ground, his wings bore him aloft. With a hooted whoop, he flapped and soared into backward loop. His belly feathers grazed the overgrown brush.

A flick of his finger-feathers sent him nearly scraping up the tower wall. Gin cheeped and pulled farther off the stone but continued riding his rocketing momentum higher, higher.

He whooshed past the balcony window and into an aerial river. The air current knocked him back into a corkscrewing loop. Gin spun, cheeping wildly.

But somewhere deep inside, he knew what to do. Gin let his mind fall away and his animal instinct take control.

The slightest tilt of his finger-feathers righted him. They pressed as solidly against the current as a surfer's board on the water. Gin soared, circling the keep at the heart of the green that stretched as endlessly as any ocean.

Gin, above it all, felt a peace unlike anything he'd known in this life or the past. He glided down to the Lady's balcony and open window with his heart as light as a feather.

Tiresias, Falchos, and the Dancing Lady rose from the wicker lounge furniture around a low, hardwood table set for tea. His friends welcomed him back with smiles and open arms.

"Sooo, how'd it go?" asked Falchos, leading Gin to the table with an arm around his feathered shoulders.

The shifter shifted back to human form, feathers melding back into skin, to answer in more than owlspeak. "I tried to be as intimidating as I could, but I think that might've backfired. They seemed more confused than anything."

"Mortals ever were a confused lot," said the dryad, leaning their branched arms on the back of Gin's chaise. "Tea?"

"Ha, sure is," said Gin, drawing a blank face of confusion from the fey.

"No matter," said the Dancing Lady, hopping gracefully over the back of her chaise to lay out across the seat. "You have delivered the warning. Perhaps it was more effective than it appeared. Let's give the mortals until the end of the month to vacate the premises."

"What do we do if they don't?" asked Gin.

"Then I must ask you, my scourge, to act."

The shifter accepted a cup of the fey's steaming brew in silence, peering at the leaves that drifted in its depths. The Dancing Lady had sworn she wouldn't command him to harm, but from the look of it, no words could convince the players and their NPC cohorts to leave. He raised his eyes from the cup to his Lady's face.

She smiled gently, knowingly. Gin couldn't help but smile back, weakly. She had done nothing to earn his distrust. So he would continue to follow her until she led him astray.

#*#*#*#*

Kel didn’t know how much time had passed. The days blended together in a series of rests broken by her cultist kidnappers to swap out her mundane dreams with unimaginable nightmares. At least here, staring blankly at an exam paper, time ticking down from the clock on the wall, they couldn’t hurt her.

Kel put down her pencil. There was no way she could pass this test anyway. She pushed off her desk to stand only to find that she could not. Her belly, swollen with child, trapped her in the seat.

Kel raised her hand, palms broken into a sweat. “Professor? I need some help.”

The professor’s footsteps clacked up from behind. Her breath fell hot and prickling on the back of Kel’s neck. 

“There is no talking during the exam,” she growled.

Kel turned over her shoulder. The face, the muzzle of her worg rapist snarled back at her. She screamed. Professor Worg tore out her throat.

Slap!

Kel’s wet cheek stung. Her eyes adjusted at once to the flickering orange light of her stone prison. Her arms were ever bound behind her back, her mouth stuffed with a gag. Three cultists leered down at her curled, naked form.

“Mother cries yet again,” the high priestess’ voice rang from the shadows of the cavern. “It seems she requires more affection.”

Three sets of hands grabbed her by the shoulders and either leg. Kel whimpered as they pushed her up against the wall. 

A leather harness was strapped around her chest to keep her pinned. Two more bands were strapped under either knee, holding her legs spread apart beside either shoulder. She hung in the leather straps like a mounted trophy, the vulnerable holes between her legs fully exposed.

The first cultist shoved his cock into the pursed mouth of her anus. Kel grunted and sobbed into her gag, her feet jerking in the air on either side of him. His pistoning thrusts slammed her back against the cave wall. 

Unable to hold her own weight, her head bobbed uncontrollably at the whim of his cock. Burning cum gushed up her rawed anus. When he pulled out, his seed slopped from her hole.

The next cultist’s dick penetrated her pregnant cunt. The new flow of blood left her even more sensitive than before. She shrieked into her gag as their dick ripped their pussy walls apart, each thrust bursting fresh agony through her nerves.

Kel’s trembling shaft seized and squeezed around the dick raping her pregnant hole. Which only urged the moaning cultist harder, faster, and deeper up her cunt until the head of their dick was knocking the helpless mouth of her occupied womb. 

“Let’s give our Chosen One something to eat,” grunted the cultist. They came into her pregnant pussy.

Kel, forced to cum herself, could only manage a snort as her wall-mounted body convulsed around her rapist's cock. The cultist pulled out, leaving her pathetically slopping from both holes.

The last cultist, an elderly woman, didn't move until all the others had left. She approached Kel with a waterskin in one hand and a bowl of hearty stew in the other. She placed the waterskin to Kel's lips. "Drink."

Kel turned her bowed head away.

"If I have to set down this bowl to pinch your nose, you're gonna be sorry."

She turned back at the thought of having to endure her humiliating torment all over again. She drank a little.

"That's better. You're not going to fight me over this stew now, are you?"

Kel gave her head the tiniest shake.

"That's better," said the cultist, giving her a spoonful. "We all need to eat."

Kel swallowed but answered back, thickly, "I don't."

To her surprise, the elderly cultist chuckled softly. "I could almost believe it."

"Really?" asked Kel around a second mouthful.

"You've been with us for three weeks. Every time you wake, you're as hale as a horse no matter what...you've endured. What's your name, child?"

"Kel," the cleric answered absently. Three weeks. Only three weeks. She had over eight more simulated months of pregnancy to endure before they killed her or let her go. She barely registered the cultist's parting words.

"My name's Gorza."

#*#*#*#*

At the end of the month, the mortals had not gotten the Hells out of their Dodge City. Construction continued, and worse yet, they had begun work on their second city, Sangaritaville.

"What would you have me do, my Lady?" asked Gin.

"We have allies in number, the Hargulka Clan of trolls. Call in their debt to me and set them upon the young cities."

"T-to what end?"

The Dancing Lady smiled. "To whatever end you deem fit, my Knight of Thorns."


	6. Contains Rape

Banan’s broken fingers healed as gnarled as roots at the joints and effectively immobile. They dangled uselessly as the troll patron Hargulka pinned their arms to their sides and their naked back against his chest with one arm. Banan shrieked until their voice choked out, the troll’s giant cock tearing their asshole apart with each gut-battering ram.

Hargulka pistoned hard and fast, grinding Banan’s knees into the stone floor of what the sorcerer could only assume was the throne room. Banan’s eyes rolled back into their skull, spittle dripping from the corners of their opened mouth. Their lungs burned, drowning under the assault of Hargulka’s breath-crushing thrusts.

In the troll’s ass-splitting rape, his giant cock pounded directly into Banan’s g-spot. The sorcerer’s choking body clenched from the coccyx all the way up their arching spine. The back of their head banged against his scaly chest like a headboard.

Hargulka came with a long grunt into his sex slave’s squeezing, spasming asshole. The flood of thick, burning seed sent Banan’s over-stuffed anus wracking all over again.

The troll pulled out, leaving the ruined sorcerer a quivering, leaking heap belly-down upon the floor. Four clawed paws padded up behind them. Banan hadn’t the strength to move as the rough, hot tongue of a trollhound lapped up the gluey cum oozing out between their legs.

A heavy wooden door creaked open. “Hargulka, fey here want to see you!”

Light stabbed into Banan’s eyes. They winced reactively, but their chest stitched with a feeling so unfamiliar they could no longer immediately recognize it.

“I was sent by the fey, the Dancing Lady,” said the light-bearer.

Banan squinted one eye open. The breath caught in their throat. A green diamond. The shifter with the lantern had no gamertag, but they had that sweet, blessed green diamond. Tears ran from their eyes.

The lantern-keeper looked away but a muscle tightened in his jaw as he faced Hargulka. The troll patron lounged in a throne-like chair of stone, hounds licking his cock clean.

“What she want?” asked the patron.

“There’s a mortal colony under construction not far from here. Do you remember the old bandit fort?”

“Bandits friends of fey, pray to fey.”

“The mortals there now killed off the bandits.”

“WHAT? We kill!”

“No! No, the Dancing Lady doesn’t want that. Raze their city to the ground and let them run. Let them tell the others this land is not to be colonized by their kind.”

“But we can kill some, right?”

“No. They all have to go.” The shifter pointed at Banan’s sorry form on the floor. “Starting with this one.”

“But that’s only cum toilet in castle.”

“Sorry, the Dancing Lady’s orders.”

To Banan's heart-stopping shock, Hargulka gave a pouty "fine."

The shifter squatted down by Banan and set down his lantern. "Can you walk?"

Their health was green and neither legs broken, so surely they could. But before they could even formulate a reply, the sorcerer broke into full-bodied sobs of relief.

The shifter gave their quaking shoulder a squeeze and scooped their huddled form into their arms. He whispered into their filthy hair as he carried them out from the throne room. "You're safe, you're safe now. And lucky you're a sorcerer. The Dancing Lady's going to be so pleased to meet you. She'll take good care of you."

There was something about his words that seemed strange to Banan, but they were too inured to everything but pain to grasp it. "Wha...what's y-your name?"

"The Knight of Thorns, or, well, you can call me Gin when it's just us fey."

"Uh, ok. Th-thank you...Gin."

#*#*#*#*

Dodger was awakened not by the earth-shaking crash of an entire palisade wall wrenched to the ground but by the ringing of the alarum bells. She un-stuck her plastered cheek from the tavern table just as Akiros burst through the door, longsword in one hand and flaming torch in the other.

“We’re under attack by trolls. How do you want to…”

The fighter Constitution-staved off the remaining alcohol in her blood and sprang to her feet. She drew her falchion with a sharp, eager grin. “Just back me up with that torch once the bodies hit the floor.”

Dodger kicked open the tavern door and stalked out into the battlefield. Nine hulking trolls had bust through the gaping side of the palisade. They raked their claws through the base of the various scaffoldings. A single blow from their arms was enough to send any defending laborers flying into a concussion.

They had no such clout against Dodger. With a wild whoop, she drove her falchion through the back of a demolishing troll’s neck. Its head went flying, its body thudding to its knees.

Akiros reached past Dodger with the torch. The neck stump hissed under the flames. It was the only way to keep the bastards from regenerating. But she didn’t stick around to watch for cauterization.

Dodger sprinted to the next troll, pressing the advantage of surprise while she had it. The giant fucker didn’t know what hit it. A falchion, driven down at the back of the neck.

She couldn’t wait for Akiros to finish the job. She raced onward, instead. But as the third troll fell, hostile eyes bored into her back. 

The trolls shouted to each other over the laborers and destruction. Three broke off from the demolition to charge at Dodger, pockets of rubble crashing down behind them. 

The lead charger ran right into Dodger’s swing. Her falchion cut deep, ripping a gash from shoulder to rib. But the troll didn’t go down.

They fell upon her with tooth and claw. Blows clanged against every plane of her armor. One troll scored a fucking bite, tusks rending through the back of her shoulder.

Dodger roared in pain but swung up her sword. The blade buried itself through the base of the troll’s jaw and into its brain. She yanked it free, the body slumping behind her.

Leaving her open. Tusks and claws rent through her armor, tearing her arms, chest, sides to shreds. Blood spewed through the new breaks in her plates.

Dodger grit her teeth, tasting blood. She grunted her war cry and slashed out. The trolls batted aside her trembling blade.

This was the end. Funny enough, her last thought wasn’t “finally.” She even refused to shut her eyes on this scene of blood and chaos. Then the trolls, one bloodied and one hale, stomped into her eye-line, facing her down.

Dodger shifted her grip and braced her legs, running red down all sides. “RAGHHH!”

The tip of a longsword burst through the hale troll’s throat in a bloody splatter. The blade followed through, sending its head flying. Akiros finished the strike with the hiss of their torch.

Dodger grinned red and ran at the bloody troll with a wild whoop. Her sword arced through its other shoulder, slashing a cross through its opened chest. The troll fell first to its knees, then to its face. The fighter crunched her falchion through the back of its neck.

Akiros kicked the head free and applied flame to seal its death. They let out a ragged breath over the hissing flesh. “Abadar’s second head, Baroness! I thought you were…”

Dodger’s head jerked. The high-pitched whinny of a horse pierced through the battle clangor. It came not from the stables but past the gaping palisade.

“That motherFUCKER!” She took off toward the gap, all focus zeroed in on the green diamond floating at the edge of the Greenbelt.

No...two diamonds.

“Dodger! Look out!”

Wood and stone crunched from either side. Her steps faltered to a jog. Tower walls came crashing down. The fighter threw herself into a backward dive, snarling in frustration.

Sure enough, as she picked herself up in the clouds of dust, the green diamonds had vanished. Her hands clenched into shaking fists.

A hand clapped her shoulder. Akiros stood beside her, every unarmored inch of skin plastered with dust and sweat. “The last trolls fled. I’m going to survey the damage.”

“I’m coming with you.”

They spent the last few hours of ebbing darkness scouring the wreckage and pulling free any trapped laborers. Much to Dodger’s surprise and relief, there’d been no deaths apart from the trolls’. Most of the laborers, however, had sustained varying degrees of damage.

“I really shat the bed on the whole no-temple thing, huh?” Dodger muttered to herself in the midst of the dust and rubble. And far, far away from where Akiros was tending to the wounded with what potions they had on hand.

Her feet wandered of their own volition back toward the fallen wall. Mist shrouded the forest, living waves in the gray dawn. 

A white-cloaked figure emerged from the fog at the base of the hill. Her shadowed face turned up toward Dodger, mouth curling in the ghost of a smile. She walked up the hill in measured paces, stopping ten from the fighter.

“Who are you and what do you want?” asked Dodger, palms itching for the hilt of her blade.

The woman extended her arm. A wooden spiral dropped from her fingers at the end of a rosary. 

Dodger’s breath caught in her throat. It was the holy symbol of Pharasma, the same as those carried by the cleric-classed players.

“I’m Niska from Pitax, just south of the border. I heard there was a young city without a single cleric within its walls.”

The fighter grabbed Niska’s hand in both of hers and pulled her into Dodge City’s rubbly limits.

“Not anymore,” she grinned. “AKIROS!”


	7. Contains Rape

The green mare stopped at the base of the Dancing Lady’s vine-draped tower. Gin dismounted with his back to Banan, now shrouded in his cloak.

“Climb on,” he said, shooting an encouraging smile over his shoulder.

Banan smiled back weakly but wrapped their arms over Gin’s shoulders. A muscle in his jaw tightened at the sight of their twisted fingers hanging uselessly against his chest. The sorcerer hopped off the horse, hugging their dirty, naked knees to his sides.

“Whatever happens, I won’t let you fall, so don’t be afraid.”

“Wh-wha…!”

Gin, shifting from skin to feathers, took off in owl form. Banan screamed over his shoulder, arms and legs wrapping tight around his shoulders and sides. It was difficult to flap without his full range of motion, but he made up for his compromised strength with multiple strokes.

He was panting by the time they reached the balcony, way too tired to take Banan for an awe-inspiring soar through the Veil, but at least they’d made it. The sorcerer even stopped screaming once they’d made it over the railing. Gin shifted back. Banan’s bare feet touched down lightly behind him.

Tiresias, Falchos, and the Dancing Lady abandoned the multi-tiered game of chess occupying the tea table to gather round. Gin stepped between them and the rescued player, extending an arm out to those on either side.

“Banan, this is Tiresias, Falchos, and our liege, the Dancing Lady. My Lady, this is Banan, a fey-blooded sorcerer.” He didn’t mention where he’d found them. They were skittish enough without bringing up the memories of their captivity and torture.

The Dancing Lady stepped into a sweeping bow, the platinum tail of her hair near floating behind her. “A pleasure to meet you, Cousin Banan.”

She rose, extending her hand in the same motion. The sorcerer’s eyes flicked from the fey to the shifter. Gin gave them a tiny, encouraging smile and nod. 

Banan licked their lips nervously. They placed their trembling, ruined hand in hers.

As soon as the fey caught their palm, her hand closed in an iron grip. Magic as fresh as the first breath of spring exploded from their joined hands. Banan shrieked, vines of glowing green shooting through one arm to the other and into their opposite hand.

The light winked out as quickly as it had flashed. Banan swayed on their feet. Gin’s cloak fell to the floor. He caught the sorcerer under the arm before they joined it.

“My...hands…,” they gasped, slumped against his chest.

“You have been restored, Cousin,” said the Dancing Lady.

“You’re welcome,” said Falchos.

“Come, take a seat,” said Tiresias.

Gin helped Banan onto a chaise and sat down beside them. He couldn’t help sneaking a proud glance at the hands his Lady had fully restored before reporting to the fey. “I had the trolls attack Dodge City’s foundations.”

“But not colonists,” said the faun.

“Not directly, no. Many were injured anyway.” Judging from the screams. It was possible some had even died.

“The question is, ‘was it effective?’” said the dryad.

Gin looked to his Lady. Her smile was compassionate and therefore knowing.

“We will need...stronger measures,” he answered quietly.

“Now that the trolls’ favor is expended, I have only one more ally that we might call upon,” said the Dancing Lady. “The creature is, however, quite impossible to control. There is no doubt it would not kill, and wantonly, once released.”

Gin said nothing, staring now into his own hands. His Lady stood. 

“Falchos, Tiresias, this is surely too much for our new friend. Let’s let them rest. And Gin?” She squeezed his shoulder as she passed. “I could never ask you to act against your Green-given nature. The owlbear is but one cog in the Green Queen’s plan for us all.”

A curious wave of heated shame rolled down from Gin’s burning face. He sat paralyzed until the feys’ footsteps faded from the room.

“You wouldn’t...you wouldn’t really loose an owlbear on a town, on another player, would you?” Banan asked quietly, their head bowed and unreadable through the curtain of their hair.

“No, of course not,” Gin croaked, his throat suddenly parched. There had to be another way. Nobody had to die, they just had to move. Why was that so hard for them to accept?

“G-good. Gin?”

“Yeah?”

“These fey…”

“You don’t trust them.”

“They were working with the trolls. Do you have any idea what the trolls did to me?”

“They’re different. My Lady healed you! We...I’m going to protect you. You trust me, don’t you?”

Banan looked up, blinking hard against their welling tears. Their chin jerked in the tiniest nod. 

Gin hugged their shoulder, breathing a long, shaky sigh. He would find another way. He swore it. But in the back of the shifter’s mind, he could not shake the looming form of the owlbear.

#*#*#*#*

Dodger, Akiros, and Niska flunked into only remaining booth in the tavern. The trolls had knocked down the scaffolding of the neighboring building and its wall with it. The resultant wreckage had collapsed over half the tavern. 

Fortunately, the tavernkeep stored their wares in the cellar. They set down a platter of jugs but no cups. Those hadn’t survived, not that any of the three took particular notice as they grabbed their jugs by the throat.

For a long time, no sound but soft swallowing broke the silence. Then Dodger reached the dregs of her jug. She sighed and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “So. Strategy.”

“Those trolls were nothing but stooges,” said Akiros. “We need to strike at the root.”

“The Knight of the Thorns,” said Dodger. “The fey. There’s a new player with them now.” Their gamertag read “Banan,” so whatever glitch had infected the Knight hadn’t spread to them. Yet.

“The Greenbelt itself serves the whim of the fey,” said the cleric. “How do you intend to find them?”

“The Knight’ll be back.” Just like the fucking Terminator this godforsaken beta was turning him into. “The next time he shows up, we follow him back.”

“It’s possible that he’ll strike elsewhere,” said Akiros.

Sangaritaville, right. Dodger let out a deep, long-suffering sigh. “Ya mind running up to warn Baron Butt-nuggets of an imminent attack, Quest-giver?”

Akiros set down their jug. It sloshed, not even half-drained. “I’ll be sure to omit the term of endearment.”

Dodger raised her jug in an empty toast. “You’re the best.”

Akiros, already stepping over the remains of the tavern door, shook their head.

#*#*#*#*

As diverting as it was to be final-decision-maker of the builders, for every day spent in his noisy, bustling city under construction, Sangra ached for three more spent wandering, discovering, even hunting. That morning, however, he woke with the realization that he wasn’t simply “final-decision-maker.” He was the goddamned baron of Sangaritaville, and he could do whatever he damned well pleased. Within reason.

He put the foreman in charge of all decisions for the next three days, suited up in his leaf armor and traveling gear, and got the heck out of proto-Sangaritaville. The moment he walked deep enough into the Greenbelt that all the city bustle faded away, his face broke into an irrepressible grin. Sangra was back in the game.

Dusk came early in the forest. With the rumble of storm clouds above, Sangra’s torches would be as good as uselessly. He headed toward the rockier parts of the wood in search of a cave, preferably one with an extensive tunnel system to explore. 

What he did not expect was to spot a human in a ragged black smock standing guard just outside one such cavern entrance. In the rapidly lengthening shadows, it was child’s play to sneak up behind them. The rogue knocked out the NPC and dragged them into the underbrush.

If this turned out to be a good-aligned hideout, Sangra could always apologize later. For now, he snuck in on an estimated countdown of thirty minutes until the guard awoke.

Sporadic torches lit the dripping caverns with swaths of flickering orange light. All the rest were shadowed alleys walled by the rock teeth of stalactites and stalagmites. The grunt and thump of flesh against flesh echoed down one of the bends, chilling Sangra’s blood.

He flipped his daggers into either hand and crept toward the source of the sound. His hands clenched, shaking around the hilts as the scene came into horrific relief.

The chamber was full of black-smocked NPCs, many visibly bearing the bloodshot eye symbol of the hag-goddess Gyronna now that they’d hiked up their rags. They clustered around a player, “Kel,” naked and bound in a frog-tie on an altar carved from the cavern wall.

Her twitching, cum-splattered body was sandwiched between a cultist reaming her ass below and another pounding her pussy above. A third cultist sat on her face, moaning grinding their cunt into Kel’s nose and mouth. Those around pumped their cocks in their hands or found a snug corner of her trussed body to penetrate.

Sangra grit his teeth against the urge to vomit. But while there was so many, there was nothing he could do but watch them violate his fellow player across every inch of her helpless flesh. Now and again, her body wracked and convulsed around her rapists’ cocks in forced orgasm, drawing jeers and laughter.

“Look at her go, the little cumslut, so fucking tight.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. Pregnant whores are really the best.”

The word struck him like a blow to his own temple. Pregnant? The fuck kind of beta simulated rape and resultant pregnancy?

Before he could reach any sort of logical answer, the gangbanging cultists began to disperse. Only one remained, riding Kel’s ass with a fist in her hair and crushing her heavy breasts against the top face of the altar.

Sangra snapped, springing from the shadows. He stabbed both daggers into either side of the NPC’s throat, stabbing their cumming groan to a bloody gurgle. He threw the body off Kel, slicing his daggers free. The head rolled to a stop under a sandaled foot.

The rogue’s wide eyes met those of an elderly woman. The two stared in a moment of burning, skin-prickling silence. With the tiniest nod, the woman lifted her foot off the severed head. She put a wrinkled finger to her lips and shuffled back into the shadows.

Sangra hadn’t a second to spare. He cut through Kel’s bonds and hefted the half-conscious girl over his shoulder. He hardly dared to breathe until they were in the nearest glade on the map. He laid her down beneath the arms of a tree. It was poor protection from the thick cords of falling rain, but it would have to do for now.

“You’re in a green zone, so just rest for now,” said Sangra, smoothing her hair out of her face. He stood up into the downpour and adjusted the straps of his pack. “When I get back, we’ll head up to the city.”

“Wh-where are you going?” she rasped, struggling onto her arms.

Forked lightning flashed over the clearing. Thunder followed instantaneously, sending coats of rain flying from every tree. Hopefully, the rain would keep up until he’d finished. Save him a wash.

“There’s a site I’ve got to put on the map.”


	8. The Death of an NPC

Gin padded as softly as he could toward the open balcony and the cool, night winds blowing through the vines. He stopped at the rail, gazing up at the moon and stars. In this Veil it had the faintest green pallor.

“Gin?”

He jumped at the voice behind him, nearly pitching over the rail prematurely. Banan stood alone, barefoot, and hugging their shawl of leaves close. Exactly the person he least wanted to see here and now.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" he asked.

"No, I couldn't sleep. What's your excuse?"

"Banan...please go back to bed."

"Oh my god. Gin, y-you're not…"

"No! No. Never. I just…," he sat down on the rail, "I have to see for myself."

Gin pitched backward over the rail and into freefall. As he fell, the wind streamed around him. Feathers grew from his flesh.

His owl body twisted into a dizzying spin over the rapidly approaching trees. He threw out his arms. Gin veered up, the greenest tips of the trees brushing his underbelly.

He soared, higher and higher, until he flew past Banan at the balcony, feathers brushing the sorcerer's nose.

"Gin!"

But with the flick of his finger-feathers, the shifter was gone, slipping from Veil to "Dodge." Lightning flashed over the Greenbelt, the black sky crashing with thunder. Despite a torrential rainfall, the owlbear's den was simple to find thanks to his Lady's map marker.

The owlbear dwelt in a cave to the north. Its mouth widened to a cavern filthy with carrion and offal. A bewildering variety of molds and fungi carpeted the floor and walls, some as large as a person. Countless insects scuttled underfoot, feeding on the mounds of waste.

Gin, maintaining owl form, gulped and tread lightly onward. He passed from the larder of rot through a tunnel into a smaller cavern. Rainwater dripped in steady cords from above, rushing down the slimy vines and roots that hung from the ceiling. They turned the floor into a pool of churning murk.

The shifter stepped toward the water's edge. There, at the other end of the pool, loomed the great, towering shadow as though torn from the back of his own mind. "Owlbear…"

"Soul of owl," the creature rumbled back in their shared speech. "Why have you come?"

"You're...intelligent."

"Of course I am. Are you?"

Gin's shoulders shook. He dropped his beaked head into his hands, hooting soft laughter. The owlbear remained silent, unmoving, until his fit had passed.

"Owlbear," said Gin barely above a breath. "If I set you upon the fledgling city in the north, would you spare their innocent lives?"

"All have chosen to colonize fey lands. All are complicit."

"N-no! No, that can't be right! Yes, they're in the wrong, but they shouldn't have to die!"

"They would have us all killed to claim and secure this land. Send me to them. See what mercy I am offered."

But Gin already knew. None. He slumped where he stood, head bowing over the rippling murk.

The owlbear...was right. This was war, and every single one of the people who'd come here to colonize had signed up for it. The Knight of Thorns raised his head.

"Go. And do not hold back."

#*#*#*#*

Rain this heavy served Sangra just as well as bath. He was spotless, if drenched, when he returned to the glade. Kel had more of a drowned cat situation going on. He handed the naked, shivering player a waterproof travelling pack.

“I think this is your gear,” Sangra shouted over the rain and rumbling clouds.

That elderly cultist likely left it out where it was easy to find. Firstly, because she must’ve also disappeared the body that would’ve put the den on guard. Secondly, because she was the only one he hadn’t encountered.

Kel dressed hurriedly, patting down all of her pockets as she acquired them.

“Yeah, I’m a rogue, but I wouldn’t steal from you,” he laughed.

“No, it’s, this is everything but my holy symbol,” she shouted back in explanation. “I’m next to useless as a caster without it.”

“No worries. We’ve got plenty of woodworkers up at the city.”

“‘Sangaritaville?’” she asked, a lilt of amusement in her voice.

“Ha! Yeah, that’s the one.”

It was only an hour’s trek from the glade. The storm made no attempt to lighten as they neared the forest’s edge. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed right as the burned field and hilltop came into view.

Sangra’s steps faltered on the drenched, ashen land. He froze, staring at the wreckage of a collapsed palisade wall. And other buildings, lit by wildly weaving spots of torchlight. An alarum bell tolled faintly in the distance.

He grabbed Kel’s wrist and pulled her after him in a crouched run from patch to patch of blackened brush. They were not yet at the base of hill when they caught sight of the attacker in the midst of the fleeing laborers. Sangra’s bloodless hand slipped from Kel.

An owlbear. The mighty, lumbering beast capable of taking down a forest drake. Now it laid waste to every building and unfortunate being in sight. With none but a spell-deficient cleric by his head, all they could do was watch and wait in horror until the wrecking was done.

As though sanctioned by the gods of this virtual world themselves, forked lightning touched down from the sky onto Sangraritaville’s highest tower. Thunder boomed and the wooden structure burst into flame beneath the endless rain. In the light of the blaze, two figures came into view.

The first was Akiros, Dodger's friend, trying to draw the owlbear towards them at the base of the blazing tower. They were distracting the beast and would doubtlessly die for it. 

The second was the nameless man beneath a green diamond at the base of the hill. This time, he was without a horse and, therefore, slow.

"Stay here." Sangra padded off, daggers in hand. But as he closed the circle between them, the Knight called out through the darkness.

"I saw your diamonds, dumbass."

"Damn, you got me there," he shouted, straightening up. Ten paces separated him from the Knight. Only ten.

Sangra threw his dagger. It whipped through the air, shunking into the Knight's side. The Knight growled in pain. Sangra ran, leaping and roaring into a vicious slash.

The Knight shifted back and continued shifting. Sangra's blade raked down an elongated, furry arm. The humanoid stag turned tail and ran for the trees, faster than any human.

"Get back here you fucking cow…!"

A screeching, tearing crash shook the hilltop and butchered Sangra's curse. The tower had fallen, crushing all those beneath it in its flaming wreckage, as must've been Akiros' plan. The owlbear did not rise. Neither did the NPC.

Sangra stooped in the weakening rain and plucked his dagger from a puddle of mud. A green diamond entered his peripheral vision. Then did a second.

Sangra and Kel both turned to stare at the player who'd emerged from the blackened forest. "Banan" approached with their hands up and open.

"If you came for the owlbear fight, you just missed it," said Sangra, his joking words steeped in bitterness.

"Bastard!" swore the sorcerer.

"Ah, so you've met the Knight of the Thorns too, huh?"

"Gin, yeah. He's working with the fey, and I've come to stop him."

#*#*#*#*

The laborers Dodger had placed on guard duty spotted them as soon as they emerged from the gray and misted Greenbelt. She held her breath, however, for even the slightest shred of hope from Niska. The cleric shook her head before Sangra carried the body through the rebuilt gates. Akiros was dead.

Dodger walked out to meet them, Sangra and the two new players behind him. It was the dawn's turn to hold its breath, suffocating every sound apart from the pulse in the fighter's ears. Her vision blurred.

"Dodger, I'm sorry," said Sangra.

Dodger swallowed and smiled and nodded. Her throat was too constricted to speak.

"They were a brave one, all the way to the end. They lured a fucking owlbear to its death. Akiros…"

"Please. Just stop."

"Right. Right. These are Kel and Banan."

"We have to stop the fey," said Banan.

Dodger's face froze. "No. Fucking. Shit."

"We have no way of finding the fey," said Niska, anger-translating while the fighter vibrated in barely contained grief.

"I'm a fey-blooded sorcerer. I can take you to their tower in the Veil."

Dodger blinked her vision clear. Banan's face came into focus, as did Kel's, though weirdly weak and strained.

"Then we haven't a second to spare. When can you take us?"

"As soon as you're ready."

"I-I'm useless without a holy symbol," said Kel.

"Then stay here with Akiros. Niska, come with us."

Sangra handed the body off to the laborer guards. Dodger didn't wait, stepping into line beside the sorcerer. To her surprise, the useless cleric filed in behind her.

No matter. They had Niska. It was fey party murder time.


	9. The Lady's Command

Gin ran for hours. He could’ve run forever. But the attack on Sangaritaville had been devastating and his friends needed to know. Now was the time for the fey to strike.

He slipped back through the Veil before dawn’s first light. Tiresias, Falchos, and the Dancing Lady awaited him. They were already on their feet when he flew over the railing. Gin shifted out of his feathers looking this way and that.

“Where’s Banan?”

“We thought they went with you!” said the faun, slapping his horns.

The dryad placed a long, wooden hand on his shoulder, but their eyes found Gin’s. “Should we fear the worst?”

A muffled, wooden creak echoed up from the base of the tower. All four tensed toward the chamber door. Gin grit his teeth and stepped into line beside them, shifting into stag form. It was far, far too late for regrets.

An inhuman roar shook the hollow tower. Dodger came charging through the doorway, teeth glinting like the blade of her falchion. A cleric flanked her either side, daggers drawn.

But Dancing Lady let out a tinkling giggle. She spun into a bowing, sweeping, arcing dance, her lithe body lit with vines of glowing green. Stopping all three attackers dead in their tracks, eyes locked on the fey’s fluid shapes.

“Thanks for making this easy,” growled Gin, stalking up to the captivated Dodger. He whipped out his leg in a vicious kick.

The fighter’s game-given instinct was faster. Her falchion whipped back into a spark-spraying block, her eyes never once leaving his dancing Lady.

“Course it wouldn’t be that easy,” grumbled the faun, pulling out his pipes. He played a rapid tune, stirring his own green magic.

A dagger shunked to the hilt into Falchos’ back. “Gah!”

Gin turned. Banan, arms open and alight in yellow, levitated over the balcony rail. Sangra vaulted over on one arm, landing lightly beside them.

“Traitor!” Gin snarled.

“They’re mine,” hissed the dryad, wooden fingers crackling. The tower’s draping vines tore from the stone at their call. They surged through the bars of the rail, seizing around Sangra and the sorcerer’s limbs.

The Dancing Lady continued to spin and dance before the frozen three. Only this time, she bared her lengthening teeth and sharpening claws. She twisted and dived at Dodger.

Sparks flew, the fighter’s body moving automatically to deflect her claws. But the baobhan sith’s teeth found purchase, driving through the skin of Dodger’s throat.

With the fighter grunted in pain, Gin spun into sharp-hooved kicks. Before he could finish with his antlers goring up under her breastplate, a movement from her back threw him off groove.

The cleric, Kel, had the Will to withstand his lady’s dance. She used her freedom to slip behind Dodger and the other cleric and set her dagger against the NPC’s throat. 

“Suck my cunt in hell, you bitch,” Kel snarled. Her dagger tore through the other cleric’s throat as efficiently as one of the fey’s own attacks.

“Now ain’t that funny,” said Falchos, thrusting a hand out at Sangra.

The rogue’s eyes bulged. He burst into a wild, violent fit of laughter that sent him doubling over onto the floor.

“Lemme show you one better,” said Banan, shoving their magic-twisted fingers at the Dancing Lady. Bands of yellow magic snapped shut over her head, arms, and legs, binding her in place.

“My Lady!” Gin shifted as fast as he could between her and Dodger.

Dodger’s hand seized around his antler. She threw him to the ground, deflecting his kicks with the ease of fending off a child. Her falchion plunged through the Dancing Lady’s gut.

“Falchos!” roared the dryad, their entire body glowing green.

“Trees, wait!”

Tiresias roared with the thick, fibrous scream of tearing wood. They flung out their arms. Their body burst into an angled wall of tangling branches.

Dodger jumped back with a snarl, Tiresias’ sacrificed body surging past to wall Gin and the Lady off from the others. Out of the sorcerer’s sight, the magic bands released their hold. 

The baobhan sith slumped forward, the tip of Dodger’s falchion glinting from her back. Blood pooled at her feet.

Gin sank to his knees. “No, no, no, no, no.”

His Lady only smiled. “My scourge, my Knight of Thorns...I vowed never to command you against your will...but I fear that I must.”

“No! Anything you say, I’ll do it freely!”

“Run.”

“What?”

“Live.”

“How can I live if I leave you behind?” Gin sobbed, tears streaking down his crumpled face.

“Do it vengeance. Do it for love. The Green Queen is coming. You must prepare the way, my dearest Knight of Thorns. Now...go!”

Bands of green magic seized around his shifted legs. He ran, not of his own volition, but at his Lady’s command.

He leapt off the landing. As he plunged down through the hollow tower, the whipping wind dried his eyes. Gin shifted, and the Knight of Thorns soared out through the tower door.

#*#*#*#*

Eight months had passed since the eradication of the Greenbelt’s fey. The forest green had turned to white beneath the fallen snow. It fell now beyond each window Sangra passed on his way to the high priestess’ birthing room.

The baron rapped his knuckles against the door. The weakened voice within bade him enter.

Kel, dressed in white, laid upon the bed. Sangra sat at her side, absently smoothing the sweat-plastered locks from her face. The basket in the far corner demanded his attention.

A black-furred creature slept within. All but its wolfish head was covered by a white blanket similar to its mother’s.

“So that’s them, then,” murmured Sangra.

“It,” said Kel. “It came from my body, but it’s nothing but an animal.”

“Then you still want me to…”

“Kill it outside. Less of a mess.”

He gave her the slightest nod and rose to his feet. Sangra grabbed the basket and carried it out from his growing city into the fields of snow. He trekked toward the dark line of the forest, leaving behind his softly filling tracks.

A clump of snowflakes drifted down onto the creature's nose. It sneezed awake, blood-red eyes opening to a sky full of snow. It's muzzled opened in the dopey, tongue-lolling grin of any dog, any puppy.

Sangra froze at the foot of the trees. He sank to one knee, both hands on the basket's handle. The pup's eyes met his.

"You're no beast," he breathed, his words curling into white smoke. "Not yet."

He glanced back over his shoulder. The snowfield was the definition of silent desolation. 

Sangra tipped the basket out between the trees. The pup went rolling with a high-pitched yelp, quickly swallowed by the wood's own silence. The basket, he buried.


End file.
